The days of only consuming prepackaged cans or bottles of beverages has gone. Now consumers purchase fresh beverages such as beer, cider, wine and kombucha from their local fill station in their own supplied containers, and bring the beverages home for personal enjoyment in their own time and spaces. While generally the industry has standardized the use of 64 oz. uninsulated glass containers, the contents of these are often too much for a single person to consume in a single sitting. This is problematic.
The current industry standard containers (known as a “growlers”) have no pressurization ability, no independent cooling ability, no temperature indication, no pressure indication, possibly no content level indication and no content identification. Once the growler is opened, generally the entire contents must be consumed for it will go flat and spoil when kept in a non-pressurized container where oxygen is allowed to come in contact with the beverage. They have to be kept close to a cooling source, but often because of their large size, these containers cannot be accommodated in a cooler or a refrigerator. Lastly, there is no education for the buyer about local specials, different types of beverages, locations of filler stations, and the like.
Any growler that could solve all of the aforementioned problems would fulfill a long-felt need in the beverage industry. The present invention provides a novel approach using new and existing technology to solve these problems.